Sincerity

So there was a podcast recording yesterday (the episode's not out) in which I was left speechless when the question of whether Zen Masters are sincere was answered in the affirmative. I have some doubts.

Let's take a look at a Zen Case:

Someone asked Master Yunmen, "Since antiquity, the old worthies have transmitted mind by mind. Today I ask you, Master: What device do you use?"

The Master said, "When there's a question, there's an answer."

The questioner went on, "In this case it isn't a useless device!"

The Master replied, "No question, no answer."

Yunmen's doing at least three things (all at once!) here:

• Answering a question with an answer

• Answering a question with an answer...that explains the nature of questions and answers.

• Answering a question with an answer... that explains the nature of questions and answers...and addressing what is outside of that with something outside of that.

Ah! Yunmen!

As it relates to being sincere, I think applying effort to try and be sincere might be a trap in that sincereity well, isn't something that you get to by following your ideas of it, that's just a contrivance...but at the same time doing whatever higgledy piggledy is just doing what you feel like.

But if you don't create any ideas of it, and set aside what you feel like doing, how do you sincerely meet people who haven't even heard of Yunmen's device?

Submitted July 25, 2022 at 05:01PM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/LryNixd